.A Spark From Before.

-5-

It was... So.... Hot...

I just wanted to peel my skin off to let the heat from under it escape, my main element is not fire dear gods.

And yet it was the small spark of magic I had died with. The blazed alive and was all consuming as it flowed through my body, the mass of it growing since it is now said that an elemental's body creates its own magic.... Not exactly true but doesn't matter... This is so painful.

How long had I been in the stone, at least a few years from what the gods told me... Why do I feel it has been longer? Gods my head, it hurts.

I want it to stop, please stop...

When I really woke up and didn't just slip in and out of consciousness I saw the wooden structure of a roof and still felt hot but not painfully so, fortunately.

I lifted my sore arm to take what was on my head off and dropped the damp cloth down with my hand, turning my head to see a quiet, small and empty house, the kitchen making up the half of the living room and it was nothing exceptional.

I fought myself in a sitting position and grabbed my face in my hands, my head was spinning for a while.

"where am I?" I muttered, standing up and reaching for my necklace I ran a finger over it.

I passed a hand over my head and to my surprise my hair had been chopped off.

I stumbled to a silver plate polished into a mirror and looked into it, it was barely an inch long as I passed my hand over it again.

"Why?" I whispered to myself, why would someone do this to me? What reason?

I turned to the front door, the light of the sun seeping in from under it. I worked my way to the door and opened it, blinded by the light for a moment before I blinked.

In all my years I had visited all I ruled over but I didn't recognize anything from this village and I have a good memory.

"Florior." I read the sign pointing into the village and the other names on it, none familiar outside of 'capitol of Solor'.

"Don't you go outside!" I heard the sound of a worried older woman say and she succeeded in pulling me inside by the elbow before I could do something. "It is too dangerous!"

I was a bit confused and I think she saw it on my face, helping me back to the couch.

"Careful, you woke up from a very long sleep." She said, hanging a kettle over the fireplace's open flame. "And you still look sick."

"Long sleep?" I asked, leaning forth with my elbows on my knees, head tilted. "How long?"

"Probably more then a thousand since the cold desert was created so long ago it was still old to the most famous of queens'.

It took a moment to sink in.

"Probably more then a thousand." I said so low I barely heard my own voice. I stared down at my feet deep in thoughts.

My love Farlorn.... Dead... My daughter Livaden.... Dead...All I know.... Dead... Even the dragons I knew.... Dead.... Elves? Dead.... All dead... A thousand year and more.

This is why the town names are so foreign, because they didn't exist when I was queen.

I glared at the ground, still remembering my jade eyes staring back at me, my connection to the dragons and the ritual I went through was not washed away by my death, and if the gods are right these people will need me.

Come on Seva be strong you can't let despair fre-- I felt a hand on my shoulder making me look up, the older woman had a look of sympathy in her eyes, holding a cup of steaming tea that had a strong smell of pine out to me, I grabbed it, the heat of it pleasant compared to the one I am feeling right now.

"I am sorry." She said which made what I was trying to bottle up burst to the surface first by a single tear and then by a whole flood of them.

I bite the inside of my cheeks as I let the tears fall, shoulders tensed up as I did all my possible to not break the thin clay cup in my hands.

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"Hey mothe--" "Ssssh!" My mother hushed me like never before when I entered leaving me shocked frozen.

I blinked a little as she pointed to the couch.

"She woke up?" I asked in a whisper as the woman was now laying on her side with her arms crossed under her head.

"Yeah and I think I should have been more careful." Mother said as I stared deeply at the tear marks on the pale skin of the stranger, we live quite far up in Solor and yet she is paler then even us with our strange disease, mother is lucky it skipped her generation partially, only giving her the red eyes.

"What did you do?" I asked carefully as she looked guilty, I don't like seeing mother sad.

"She was quite confused when she came back and I pulled her back inside after she opened it while I was not in the room, telling her it was dangerous and to be careful after such a long sleep."

"She didn't take it well did she?" I asked, now sad too, that explains the tears.

"No, Skarla it has been over thousands of years that she was stuck in that stone and my imprudent words made her realize that, she cried herself to sleep after that which has been a few slices of sun before you came back."

"Poor lady."

"The worst is to come, you know of history, there was many elementals in the past, at least two per castle and now." A heavy silence came to be. "She might be the last."

I didn't comment of my mother's words, I know for a fact the Gatekeeper is still alive but I knew what she meant as we sadly looked at each other before I looked at the woman again.

I am sorry.